COME TO THE WINDOW by Howard Norman
Come To The Window starts with a bang. Well, two bangs. Elizabeth Frame shoots her husband dead on their wedding night. Moments later, a beached whale is detonated on the shore nearby, killing the the sapper and a kid who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
With that sort of start, I was set for some noirish crime caper. But this is an altogether different beast; a profound and affecting meditation on (in)humanity in times of crisis. It’s Norman’s pandemic novel, an allegorical tale set at the time of the Spanish flu, when society was in flux, the world was at war, xenophobia was rampant, wounded soldiers were coming home with PTSD and… yeah, it’s not subtle. There is a cool elegance to Norman’s writing, though, and he steers clear of the sentimental or sensationalist sinkholes into which many other authors would verily leap.
Anchored by a deep sense of dignity and decency, Come To The Window bubbles with the kind of hope that isn’t twee or condescending. Hell, it’s earnest as all fuck. But it’s exactly the kind of beautiful book I needed right now. Marvellous.
Come to the Window by Howard Norman
Norton, 2024
190 pages
Norman has always fascinated me because most of his novels are set in Nova Scotia, which is where I was born and raised. It's an interesting place and like anywhere deserves it's own literature, but it always strikes me as strange considering (as far as I know) he doesn't live there or have any connection to the place predating the one he's forged through his writing over the years, and it's hard to imagine what would draw anyone to the place in the way it's drawn him. But still, I've enjoyed what I've read of him and appreciate his appreciation.